


I Just Want to Dance With You

by TheGreatSporkWielder



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Flirting, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-12
Updated: 2012-07-12
Packaged: 2017-11-09 19:43:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreatSporkWielder/pseuds/TheGreatSporkWielder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Pepper says that I have to know how to waltz for this next party, and there’s no way in hell I’m taking dancing lessons by myself. Also, I told JARVIS to translate all your research into Ancient Sumerian if you didn’t agree to come.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Just Want to Dance With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeebuddha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeebuddha/gifts).



> Coffeebuddha had dancing on the brain when I asked for a prompt (she was watching _So You Think You Can Dance_ ), so this fic is for her. Hope you like it, dearest! :)

“Why did I agree to this?” sighed Bruce.

 

“Because Pepper says that I have to know how to waltz for this next party, and there’s no way in hell I’m taking dancing lessons by myself,” said Tony. “Also, I told JARVIS to translate all your research into Ancient Sumerian if you didn’t agree to come.”

 

“I hate you.”

 

Tony grinned and slapped Bruce’s shoulder. “No, you don’t. Besides, you’ll like me a lot better when you see who agreed to teach us.”

 

Bruce’s eyes widened. “No. Please, tell me you didn’t ask—“

 

“That hot assistant of Coulson’s who you’ve been not-so-secretly eyeing for the last two months? Yup.”

 

“And she agreed?”

 

“She’s the one who suggested it, if you want to get technical about it. Her dad was a ballroom dancer or something; she told me she used to teach all her friends for weddings and stuff. Now come on, Bruce, isn’t the prospect of dancing with a gorgeous woman _much_ more exciting than sitting by yourself along the wall like a sad little girl at the prom?”

 

“It might be if I didn’t have two left feet.”

 

“Well, that’s what Darcy’s for, right? How’s that old song go? Something about guys with two left feet doing just fine if the girl is smokin’ hot?” Tony shimmied a bit and grinned unrepentantly at Bruce’s eye-roll.

 

“I'm pretty sure it says she’s ‘sweet.’”

 

“That’s fifties-speak for ‘hot,’ right?”

 

Bruce just shook his head fondly. He looked around as they entered an unfamiliar room, and his eyebrows shot up as realized it was a dance studio. He was just about to ask _why_ there was a dance studio in Stark Tower until he looked back over at Tony. With a mental shrug, Bruce pushed the question from his mind. Tony had everything from a bowling alley (thirty-second floor, with late-night laser-bowl tournaments every Wednesday) to a full-service spa (fiftieth through fifty-fourth floors; they gave the best Tibetan massages Bruce had ever received, including the one he’d gotten _in actual Tibet_ ); why shouldn’t he have a dance studio? _You never know when you might need one_ , Bruce imagined Tony saying with a shrug as he plotted it out on the blueprints for the forty-ninth floor of the Tower.

 

“Well, hello, you two!” Bruce was jerked out of his musings by the cheerful greeting. Darcy, wearing a very nice dress that enhanced her curves and swirled becomingly around her legs, came towards them, smiling, holding out her hands. Tony immediately reached for one and twirled a giggling Darcy under his arm. Giving Bruce a sidelong glance and a smirk, Tony spun her towards Bruce and let go, forcing Bruce to reach out and grab her before she crashed into him. His hands landed on her waist and as her palms splayed against his chest in an attempt to steady herself, his grip spasmed and his face flushed. He quickly set her on her feet and stepped back from her, clearing his throat.

 

“Good morning, Miss Lewis,” he said, and he felt his ears burning and hoped she didn’t notice.

 

Darcy smiled at him and rolled her eyes. “God, Doc, how many times do I have to tell you not to call me _Miss Lewis;_ it makes me feel like I’m my sixty-five year old spinster great-aunt. Call me Darcy, for god’s sake, before I start yelling at you to get off my damn lawn.”

 

“Darcy, then,” Bruce echoed, giving her a tiny smile, and as her smile widened in reply, he felt the burning spreading down into his neck and he dropped his gaze from her eyes to his fingers, which were nervously tangling together.

 

“Pepper here yet?” asked Tony. Darcy jumped a bit, as though she’d forgotten he was there, and turned to face him.

 

“Uh, yeah,” she said, raising one hand to rub the back of her neck. “She’s over there, putting on some shorter shoes.” Darcy pointed across the studio, to where Pepper sat in a chair, removing her stilettos and sliding on a more moderate heel.

 

Tony laughed. “Of course she is. Maybe I’ll actually be taller than her, for once.” He loped across the room to Pepper, leaving Bruce and Darcy standing in an awkward silence.

 

“Look, Doc,” Darcy said finally, “you don’t have to do this. I know Tony--”

 

“It’s fine,” Bruce blurted. “And it’s Bruce.” He looked up from his hands to see that Darcy’s cheeks were slightly pinker than they had been a moment ago, and she was fiddling with a strand of her hair. “If I’m supposed to call you Darcy,” he continued, emboldened by her slight blush, “then you have to call me Bruce.”

 

Darcy’s smile turned cheeky and her eyes gleamed. “Okay, then, _Bruce,”_ she said, holding out a hand and raising a challenging eyebrow, “show me what you got.”

 

Bruce slowly took her hand, shaking his head. “I haven’t got anything,” he said. “The last time I danced was with the maid of honor at my cousin’s wedding my senior year of undergrad.”

 

“Oh?” Darcy guided his other hand to rest lightly just below her shoulder blades, then rested her free hand on his shoulder. “And?”

 

“I accidentally tripped her and she somehow ended up bashing her nose against my knee,” he replied sheepishly. “She had bruises for a week.”

 

Darcy had to bite her lip to keep from laughing, but he didn’t mind. “Did she forgive you?” she asked finally, her voice brimming with mirth as she slowly began guiding him in the steps of the waltz.

 

Bruce shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. She apparently later told the bride I’d done that on purpose to try to cop a feel.”

 

Darcy raised an eyebrow. “ _Did_ you try to cop a feel?”

 

“No!” Bruce exclaimed. At that moment, he stumbled, nearly taking Darcy down to the floor with him. She managed to regain her footing and caught him under the elbows before he toppled to the floor, helping him to straighten back up.

 

“No,” she echoed, and he could hear the laughter in her voice. “You really _are_ just that bad.”

 

Bruce shrugged self-deprecatingly. “What did I tell you?” he said.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tony and Pepper had taken to the dance floor, and were twirling their way around it, looking in no way like either of them actually needed any sort of dance lessons.  His eyes narrowed. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, and he wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or amused by Tony’s machinations.

 

“What is it?” asked Darcy, as she pulled him back into a proper hold.

 

“These lessons never were for Tony, were they?” he asked, curling his fingers along her shoulder, managing to catch a few strands of her hair with his thumb.

 

Darcy shrugged. “He just said something about Pepper nagging him to brush up on his waltz, and then when I told him I could help him with that, he told me he wanted to bring you along, too. I figured he just wanted a wingman or someone to offset the estrogen or something.”

 

Bruce sighed. “Not exactly.”

 

“Is he trying to set us up or something?” asked Darcy, craning her neck to look over at Tony.

 

“Probably,” said Bruce. “My own personal Yenta.”

 

Darcy’s brow furrowed, and he felt her fingers tighten on his shoulder. “Do you not _want_ to go out with me?” she asked, and he thought he heard a touch of hurt in her voice. “‘Cause, I gotta say, I’m an awesome date, if I do say so myself.”

 

“It’s not that,” Bruce protested. “I’m sure you are. It’s just—“

 

“Big, green, and grouchy?” Darcy asked knowingly.

 

Bruce nodded. “ _He’s_ not exactly an awesome date.”

 

“Well, you know what they say about dancing, Bruce,” Darcy teased, sliding her hand a little further up his shoulder, pulling herself closer to him.

 

“What’s that, Darcy?” he asked, pressing his own hand a little more firmly against her back. “That nobody dances sober, unless they’re insane?”

 

“ _No_ ,” she replied, giggling as she pinched him. “‘To dance is to be out of yourself,’” she quoted, tilting her chin loftily. “‘Larger, more beautiful, more powerful.’ Agnes DeMille said that.”

 

“So…dancing is like the Other Guy?”

 

Darcy grinned. “Exactly! And you’ve got a pretty good handle on _him_ , so why don’t we channel some of that anger into a foxtrot.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Agnes DeMille was a famous choreographer. She did the choreography for the movie _Oklahoma!_ , as well as a bunch of stuff for Broadway.
> 
> 2\. Bruce's dance quote is attributed to H.P. Lovecraft.


End file.
